Pilot Dies After Ultralight Aircraft Crash in Huntley
The pilot of an ultralight aircraft died after a crash in a Huntley field, police said Monday.
Shortly before 7 p.m. Saturday, Huntley police and firefighters were alerted to a downed aircraft in a field behind a Culver’s restaurant on Route 47. They found a 54-year-old man injured from a “rapid descent” of several hundred feet, they said. The man was taken to Northwestern Medicine Huntley Hospital.
Police said Monday the man, James W. McCulla Jr., of Huntley, had died. An autopsy was scheduled to determine his cause of death.
People in the area told police the aircraft took off nearby, then quickly banked. A short time later it went into a slow spin, then hit the ground, police said.
Police described the aircraft as a carbon paramotor ultralight, or “essentially a parachute with a fan motor attached to the operator.”
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